The Scotts Run Coalfield from the Great War to the Great Depression:
A Study in Overdevelopment

By Phil Ross

Volume 53 (1994), pp. 21-42

In 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt, visiting the Scotts Run district
northwest of Morgantown, found desperate poverty resulting from an
overexpanded coal industry. The Depression had compounded the woes
of miners who had not worked regularly for years,1 but conditions
had not always been so bleak. From the end of World War I until the
early 1920s, Scotts Run was the marvel of the industry. Few
coalfields ever developed as quickly, especially in such a
geographically limited area. However, the intensity of its rise was
matched by its rapid and extended fall. The transition from boom to
bust offers insights into West Virginia's coal industry and lessons
in the pitfalls of overdevelopment and overproduction.

The narrow Scotts Run valley today bears the common scars of the
coal mining industry. The creek often runs orange with acid mine
drainage, surface mine highwalls loom over the valley, and the
surviving houses of several coal camps perch on the hillsides,
facing bottomland filled and graded with sterile slate and mine
waste.2 Those familiar with eastern bituminous coal mining areas,
especially in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, will find
nothing particularly unique or exceptional in the landscape along
Scotts Run. However, in historical perspective Scotts Run is indeed
different. Following World War I and continuing until the Great
Depression, the valley hosted perhaps the most intensive coal
development in the industry. In the fifteen-year period from 1917,
the date the field was opened, until 1932, when the industry had
virtually collapsed, no less than sixty different coal companies
operated along Scotts Run. At peak development in 1923,
thirty-seven mines operated by thirty-three different companies
produced coal along the Run.3 The density and speed of development
of the Scotts Run field were quite remarkable, even for an industry
noted for its boom-and-bust cycle.

The Scotts Run field continued to expand into the early 1920s, a
notoriously dark period for both capital and labor in the coal
industry. Basic disagreements over control of the means of
production coincided with perhaps the most spectacular
overdevelopment of a basic industry up to that time. Following
unprecedented increases in prices, profits, and wages during and
immediately following World War I, the American coal market
consumed only 580 million tons of the more than one billion tons
mined annually.4 The Scotts Run coalfield developed amidst this
unchecked expansion.

Scotts Run lies on the eastern outcrop of the Pittsburgh coal
seam, known as "the most valuable mineral deposit in the world."
This seam underlies a large area of western Pennsylvania, eastern
Ohio, and northern and central West Virginia. The Fairmont field,
of which Scotts Run is a part, rose to national prominence on this
valuable and versatile seam of coal.5

Pioneer geologist William Barton Rogers, in conducting the first
systematic inventory of mineral resources of the state of Virginia,
traveled over much of the rugged western portion of the state
during the mid-1830s. In 1836, the reconnaissance team arrived at
Morgantown, crossed the Monongahela River, and journeyed up Scotts
Run to its headwaters.6 The Rogers survey found "several fine beds
of coal."

One of these . . . is known by the name of the "Main Coal" of
northern Virginia. . . . The greatest thickness of workable coal is
stated to be nine and a half feet, at the mouth of Scott's Run. The
second coal seam in importance, is about five feet thick. A third
is from three to four feet. A fourth, geologically the highest
known coal of any value in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, is
five feet in thickness.7

The "main coal" to which Rogers refers is the Pittsburgh seam.8
At the mouth of the Run it crops out of the river buff 170 feet
above the Monongahela, dips gently to the northwest, and goes
beneath the streambed about a mile above its mouth.9 The Redstone
seam lies thirty-five feet above the Pittsburgh, and another forty
to fifty-five feet higher is the Sewickley seam. The Waynesburg
seam caps the series approximately 250 feet above the Sewickley.10
The three higher seams are at their easternmost extent in West
Virginia on Scotts Run and, owing to local geological conditions,
occur in an isolated "island." The Scotts Run valley bisects this
area.11

The commercial development of the Fairmont field began in 1852
following the completion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and
continued into the twentieth century. Principle growth and
development occurred in the vicinity of Fairmont and Clarksburg
along the route of the railroad.12 The coal industry in Monongalia
County, in contrast, developed much later. One of the earliest
commercial operations, the Hutchinson Coal Company's Beechwood
mine, was located at Round Bottom on the east bank of the
Monongahela River, just north of the Marion County line. Operations
began in 1890 shortly after the completion of the Fairmont,
Morgantown, and Pittsburgh Railroad, which was subsequently
acquired by the B&O.13 This railroad on the east bank of the
river was the key stimulus to coal development in Monongalia
County. In 1899, the county produced 56,793 long tons of coal, most
of which originated at the Beechwood mine.14 Five years later,
production grew to 194,450 tons and in 1909 to 235,816 tons.
Completion of the Morgantown and Kingwood Railroad in that same
year opened a large area of Freeport coking coal, especially valued
for metallurgical purposes, in eastern Monongalia and Preston
counties.15

Although the Scotts Run basin remained untapped, its coal
resources had not gone unnoticed. Before the Morgantown and
Kingwood Railroad was completed, Senator Stephen B. Elkins planned
to extend the tracks across the river and into Pennsylvania. Though
the extension was never built, the prospect prompted a number of
land speculators to invest in the Scotts Run basin.16

By 1902, two large coal companies had leased or purchased in fee
the mineral rights to the majority of the watershed. The Cochran
Coal and Coke Company of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, filed articles of
incorporation at Morgantown in May 1902, with authorized capital
stock of five hundred thousand dollars. The holding company
immediately began purchasing large numbers of small, individually
owned tracts of coal in the middle and upper sections of Scotts
Run. The Monongalia County deed books show an aggressive, sustained
effort by Cochran to consolidate its Scotts Run holdings over a
period of seven years, with over 150 separate purchases of coal
lands.17 The coal lands on the lower end of the Run were largely
controlled by the Consolidation Coal Company, under the leadership
of Fairmont native Clarence W. Watson. By 1903, after merging with
the Fairmont Coal Company, Baltimore-based Consolidation was by far
the largest company in northern West Virginia, operating or leasing
thirty-six mines in the region.18 Local Morgantown businessmen, who
rose to prominence later as the Scotts Run field boomed, acquired
mineral rights to smaller tracts.19

The vast potential wealth of Scotts Run remained untapped in the
absence of a rail outlet. Local businessmen chartered the
Morgantown and Dunkard Valley Railroad to remedy this situation in
1908, but extensive financial problems prevented its completion.
Its successor, the Morgantown and Wheeling Railroad, was completed
to Brave, Pennsylvania, in 1916 after several false starts.20

The rush to develop the virgin coalfield was stimulated by the
unprecedented demand of World War I. Monongalia County's annual
production reached four hundred thousand tons in 1914 when the
Monongahela Railway, a joint venture of the Pennsylvania and New
York Central railroads, arrived opposite Morgantown on the west
bank of the river. This line also provided connections to Fairmont
and Pittsburgh. The North American Coal Company opened its
Maidsville mine on the Monongahela Railway in July 1914, and
several smaller mines began mining the Pittburgh seam near the
mouth of Scotts Run.21

The first coal shipped from Scotts Run was loaded over a
temporary tipple during the first week of January 1917 by the Berry
Coal Company, chartered that month with a capital stock of
twenty-five thousand dollars by local businessmen Lee M. and Frank
C. Shriver, Everhart Bierer, and superintendent Joseph Bierer.22
Adjacent to this mine was the Scott [sic] Run Coal Company,
with equal capital, headed by Benjamin M. Chaplin and the
aforementioned Shrivers. Both companies leased the Sewickley seam
from Cochran and Scott's first shipment was February 1917.23

Wartime demand for coal drove up prices, providing the impetus
for the Scotts Run boom. Before the federal government instituted
price controls, coal sold for as much as fourteen dollars a ton.
Coal properties that had sold for six dollars an acre before the
war now commanded up to two thousand dollars.24 Economic expediency
required quick development and the earliest operations were
marginally capitalized. The Randall Coal Company was incorporated
with fifty thousand dollars in February 1917 by Waynesburg,
Pennsylvania, capitalists, and superintendent H. Jarvis Eldred
directed the opening of the Pittsburgh seam near the mouth of the
Run.25 The Davis Fuel Company, organized with Uniontown,
Pennsylvania, capital of twenty-five thousand dollars, was
chartered in April with George F. Hose as superintendent. Its Davis
No. 1 mine opened in the Sewickley seam. Samuel D. Brady, a
prominent operator from Fairmont with ties to Cleveland capital,
chartered the Osage Coal Company and opened drift operations in
both the Pittsburgh and Sewickley seams.26

Larger, better-financed operations initiated in 1917 also
included the Elkins-Stone Coal Company, the Cleveland and
Morgantown Coal Company, and Chaplin Collieries. The Cleveland and
Morgantown Company, capitalized at three hundred thousand dollars
by the Pursglove family of Cleveland, represented the largest
amount to that date.27 Benjamin Chaplin, a prominent Morgantown
businessman, financed Chaplin Collieries at one hundred thousand
dollars in June 1917 and established operations next to the Osage
mines. Chaplin first shipped Sewickley coal from the Louise mine in
1918 and, after doubling the company's capitalization, opened the
Virginia mine in the Pittsburgh seam in 1920.28 Several smaller,
much more marginal companies filed their intentions to mine coal on
Scotts Run that year. Both the Cass Coal Company, capitalized at a
meager nine thousand dollars, and the Cassville Colliery,
capitalized at twenty-five thousand dollars, planned operations in
the Waynesburg seam. The Higgins Coal Company, organized at twenty
thousand dollars capital, worked Waynesburg coal owned in fee by
operator W. R. Higgins. Only the Higgins operation survived the
year, with no record that the other two companies ever produced
coal. The Waynesburg seam proved unprofitable to mine, and only two
of the twenty-four companies that worked this high seam before
World War II were in production more than three years.29

Although the Monongahela Railway was an important factor in the
quick development of the field, the Morgantown area offered other
amenities, and a key feature was the city of Morgantown itself. The
city was the seat of county government and home of the West
Virginia Geological and Economic Survey and state university, which
included a prominent mining school. Banking facilities, diversified
business development, adequate housing, and good schools made it a
favorable location to headquarter companies and raise families.
Compared with other coal areas in West Virginia, it offered a
relatively large labor pool from which to draw miners. Paved roads
and railroads linked it to both regional cities and national
markets. In practical terms, it was a convenient and well-developed
service center.30

Morgantown's proximity also tended to minimize the capital
required to open a mine in the Scotts Run district. The West
Virginia Traction and Electric Company provided the power essential
to operate a mine, offsetting the cost of constructing on-site
power plants in remote areas.31 Scotts Run operators were also able
to economiz on housing and other community needs, since many miners
and their families lived outside the camps, and miners commuted to
the area via bus, trolley, or rail service. Few operators bothered
to construct sturdy housing, and camp residences were noteworthy
more for the speed with which they were constructed than for
comfort.32

The density of mining development on Scotts Run was striking,
and unusual leasing practices contributed to this phenomenon. Most
landholders leased coal land to operators by the acre; on Scotts
Run landowners leased both by the acre and by the seam, thus
subdividing the coal. Two investors, the Cochran Coal and Coke
Company and W. R. Higgins, illustrate this pattern. Cochran leased
to several different operators, including Connellsville By-Product,
Cleveland and Morgantown, Osage, and Pursglove, in different seams.
This unusual practice occasionally caused both engineering and
legal problems, as a 1924 lawsuit by Chaplin Collieries against the
Pursglove Coal Mining Company attests. Chaplin charged that the
Pursglove company had damaged the Sewickley seam directly above the
Pittsburgh seam in which the defendant operated. The court enjoined
Pursglove from mining "in such a manner and in such a way as to
unnecessarily injure the plaintiff and destroy its mine and
endanger the lives of its employees." This case attracted the
interest of the entire industry as it was the first action
involving the protection of the coal seam overlying the one being
mined. The trade journal noted that "practically all of the land in
Cass district in the coal belt has both Sewickley and Pittsburgh
coal under it and in most instances the veins are owned by
different parties."33 Higgins, a Cleveland capitalist and operator,
leased Sewickley coal to the Bunker Coal Company and its
successors, while two companies in which he held interest, Oakhill
Colliery and the Higgins Coal Company, operated in the Waynesburg
seam overhead. Higgins's success came as a landowner rather than as
an operator, as both the Oakhill Colliery and the Higgins Coal
Company vanished by 1925.34

At the end of World War I in 1918, Monongalia County's annual
production totaled 1,687,153 long tons, more than quadruple the
1914 figure. The surge in production from the new Scotts Run mines
accounted for part of this gain. By 1920, production was up 59
percent to 2,878,052 tons, and the next year, another 65 percent
increase brought production to 4,398,929 long tons. This
extraordinary growth occurred at the same time national coal
production slowed following the war boom. Production in other West
Virginia fields actually decreased during this period. Monongalia
Countys gain of 1,520,877 tons from 1920 to 1921 was almost double
the net gain of 765,288 long tons for the state.35

Scotts Run defied the trends of the market by continuing to
thrive and expand. The Sewickley seam's suitability as a steam fuel
helps to explain this paradox. Dr. Israel C. White, a Monongalia
County native and West Virginia State Geologist, waxed eloquent
when he described the Sewickley seam in a coal trade journal:

But what shall we say of Morgantown's future, where a fourth
coal of commercial thickness is added by dame nature to the three
which Fairmont possesses, and these four at the height of their
development in thickness and purity! It is the presence of these
four splendid coal seams . . . that has brought about the most
wonderful coal development . . . that the entire Appalachian field
has ever witnessed.

. . . The Sewickley coal [in this region] . . . has a peculiar
physical structure which renders it even more efficient as a fuel
than even the Pittsburgh coal at its best, viz., the richly
bituminous layers of the coal are separated by many layers of
mineral charcoal one-sixteenth to one-quarter-inch thickness, often
termed "mother coal" by the miners. This composition prevents
fusion of the coal on the grate bars and hence it burns up without
clinker into a fine ash. . . . The Empire State Express of the New
York Central Line, one of the fastest trains in the world, is
reported to use this coal exclusivly when available. It attains its
maximum development in both purity and thickness in the Scott's
[sic] and Robinson's Run regions, near Morgantown, often
having a thickness of seven feet of clean coal with a splendid
roof, while the great Pittsburgh bed, only 100 feet lower, has a
thickness of eight and often nine feet. . . .

What the future has in store for this remarkable coal field
remains to be seen. It has made history in the coal industry since
the day it was opened.36

Such enthusiastic boosterism from the respected geologist,
widely known for his sober and objective assessment of particular
coals, aided the marketing of Scotts Run coal, particularly the
Sewickley. White was not unbiased in this matter, however, having
held considerable financial interest in Sewickley coal land in the
Fairmont field in adjacent Marion County.37 Railroads throughout
the East and even Canada sent their fuel inspectors to Morgantown
and let contracts for locomotive fuel. Throughout the early 1920s,
market reports in The Black Diamond noted the arrival of
these sales prospects in Morgantown. Among the railroads that used
Scotts Run Sewickley coal in their locomotives were the
Pennsylvania; the New York Central; the Canadian Pacific; the Grand
Trunk; the Toronto, Hamilton, and Buffalo; the Delaware and Hudson;
the Lehigh Valley; the Central of New Jersey; and the Northern
Pacific.38 Scotts Run Sewickley soon established an unmatched
reputation as a locomotive fuel for discerning railroads, and local
producers found an enviable, self-promoting niche market. Since
locomotive boilers and steam-power plants operate under the same
principles, Sewickley coal was well suited as a steam-generating
fuel for other industrial consumers, as well as to fire the kilns
used in manufacturing Portland cement and brick.39 Although
Sewickley coal comprised only 20 percent of the county's coal
reserves, it accounted for half its production in the early
1920s.40

Despite the local significance of the Sewickley seam, the
Pittsburgh was the regions mainstay. A versatile domestic, steam,
and industrial fuel, Pittsburgh coal had a wide market in the
Middle Atlantic states and the Midwest. The "lake trade" was
another major market for the field during this period. Coal shipped
to American ports on the Great Lakes was loaded onto freighters and
bound for Canadian ports, where it entered the coal market in
Canadas most populous region.41 Competition for this trade became
fierce as production capacity exceeded market consumption in the
early 1920s and coal prices fell. With Pittsburgh coal, the Scotts
Run mines competed solely on the basis of price with others in the
market, which included the entire eastern coal industry.
Significantly, they also competed among themselves.42

Even as the Scotts Run coal industry expanded production, the
market conditions that had encouraged its growth were changing. New
boiler technologies that efficiently burned small sizes of coal
following World War I stimulated demand for "run of mine" coal
which was shipped without screening or sizing.43 In addition, new
combustion technology also improved efficiency, netting several key
industries considerable savings and reductions in fuel requirements
during the 1920s. Railroads reduced fuel consumption for freight
service 18 percent and for passenger service 13 percent from 1920
to 1925. Electric utilities reduced the amount of coal needed to
generate a kilowatt-hour by 34 percent during the same period.
While increased efficiency by itself reduced demand at least 11
percent through the 1920s, oil and natural gas consumption
accelerated, making inroads into coal's traditional markets.
Automobiles fueled with gasoline began to supplant rail travel, and
fuel oil and natural gas furnaces reduced domestic demand for
coal.44

In 1923, among the thirty-seven mines in the narrow confines of
Scotts Run were several large operations. Brady-Warner Coal
Corporation, Connellsville By-Product Coal Company, and Cleveland
and Morgantown Coal Company hd ties to out-of-state capital with
coal interests in Pennsylvania, Ohio, southern West Virginia, and
elsewhere. Chaplin Collieries Company, Gilbert-Davis Coal Company,
Soper-Mitchell Coal Company, and Shriver Coal Company were
controlled by capitalists whose interests were largely local. There
were also many marginal operators. Several companies expanded and
consolidated operations to adjust to the market. Favorable
conditions for the Scotts Run operators ended in 1923, however, and
the following year ushered in an era of increased production with
dwindling markets and restive labor, two factors that until this
time had little affected the development of the field. Only the
strong or the stubborn companies survived the next few years.45

In early 1924, Scotts Run maintained the most amazing
concentration of coal production in the industry. The Brady-Warner
Coal Corporation's Osage No. 1 and 2 mines worked both the
Pittsburgh and Sewickley seams. Chaplin Collieries operated two
drift mines further up the Run, the Louise in the Sewickley and
Virginia in the Pittsburgh; to the northwest, the Cleveland-based
Connellsville By-Product Coal Company worked a busy Pittsburgh
slope mine. Across the road were the No. 1 and 2 mines, Pittsburgh
and Sewickley, of the Cleveland and Morgantown Coal Company at the
Pursglove mine camp. Less than one-half mile further west, the
Gilbert-Davis Coal Company operated six of its own mines in the
Pittsburgh, Sewickley, and Waynesburg seams where Guston Run enters
Scotts Run and leased the adjacent South Penn, Anchor, Guston Run,
and Greenmont mines. This represented the practical extension of
mining in the Pittsburgh seam.46

Next to the Diamond Coal Company's Liberty drift mine was the
"old" Berry mine, the original mine on Scotts Run, now operated by
the Soper-Mitchell Coal Company. Soper-Mitchell also operated one
slope mine in the nearby town of Jere. The Shriver Coal Company
operated another slope mine just a few hundred yards west of Jere,
with a small camp nestled in the hollow on the north side of the
road. Continuing up the Run was the tipple of the Pittsburgh-based
Bunker Coal Company, which mined the Sewickley seam through a slope
entry. The Cassville area was the site of several operations mining
the Waynesburg seam through drift mines. Among these were the twin
tipples of the Oakhill Colliery and Higgins Coal Company and the
Crest Coal Company on the north side of the Run opposite the Bunker
mine. At Cassville the railroad continued west past the Continental
Coal Company's as-yet-unopened Brock shaft mine.47 Total production
from these mines was slightly less than four million tons of coal
annually.48

Later in 1924, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) made
Scotts Run a focal point in its struggle to maintain its tenuous
hold on the Fairmont field, by then the last stand of union mining
in West Virginia.49 The ensuing 1924 strike and lockout ended a
relatively peaceful era in labor relations on Scotts Run and
initiated a tragic series of events that resulted in privation and
bitterness among the miners and bankruptcy for most of the
operators.

Although the union first sent organizers to the Fairmont field
in 1892, nearly a quarter of a century passed before it succeeded
in negotiating a contract. Persistent attempts to install the
miners' union met determined resistance from hostile operators and
sympathetic judges wielding injunctions. The Consolidation Coal
Company set the tone of labor relations in the field. Clarence W.
Watson, who controlled Consolidation, finally acquiesced to the
UMWA in 1918, and the rest of the field followed suit.50

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, the wartime
Fuel Administration refereed the Washington Agreement between the
union and the operators, which set day wages at five dollars. This
scale was to continue in effect until April 1920 or for the
duration of the war. The Fuel Administration also regulated coal
prices, but its determination to maximize production virtually
guaranteed operators handsome returns on investments. Even marginal
operators profited tremendously during the war. In West Virginia,
the average price per ton in 1916 was ninety-seven cents. In 1917,
the averge price had risen to $2.02 per ton and to $2.53 in 1918.
On the spot market, prices reached as high as fourteen dollars a
ton.51

Although armistice was declared in November 1918, a year later
the Treaty of Versailles had not yet been approved by Congress.
Without an official end to the war, miners earning power steadily
dropped and the UMWA grew restive. The union, at its annual
convention in September, demanded a new contract that would raise
wages to meet war-induced inflation and the correspondingly higher
cost of living. The Wilson administration, wanting particularly to
control the wage/price spiral, and the operators demurred. In
response, the miners struck nationwide on November 1, 1919.52

Although twenty thousand Fairmont field miners joined the
strike, the thriving Scotts Run district seemed unaffected. The
Black Diamond reported that a large number of Scotts Run miners
were opposed to the strike, and "while virtually all the miners in
Monongalia County did suspend operations Nov. 1, mines on Scotts
[sic] Run continued to operate under police protection
furnished by the state and the county of Monongalia, there being
about twenty-two mines on Scotts Run."53 The strike ended six weeks
later with an initial 14 percent increase in miners' wages and an
additional award to be determined by a federal investigating
commission. The non-participation of the Scotts Run district
rankled the union, and an aggressive organizing campaign in March
1920 quickly brought these mines into the UMWA fold. The
commission's final award, a 27 percent increase over the 1917
scale, no doubt enhanced the Scotts Run miners interest in the
union.54

The nation's coal production had increased significantly during
the war. The overdeveloped industry produced one billion tons
annually with a market potential of slightly more than half this
figure.55 Evidence of overproduction rapidly became apparent after
shortages of coal caused by the winter strike and higher coal
prices prompted a rush of production that glutted the national
market by mid-summer 1920, despite an insufficient number of
railroad cars that idled whole mining districts. A Guston Run
miner, writing to the United Mine Workers Journal in June,
noted that many mines on Scotts Run had shut down and warned union
brothers not to seek work there. He also observed that several of
the newest mines had not yet been organized.56

The postwar wage agreement continued in force from April 1920
until April 1922, during which time the most severe business
depression since 1893 reduced coal prices by nearly half.57 Events
in southern West Virginia, particularly the Logan-Mingo strike and
the Armed March of 1921, had strengthened the resolve of many
operators to resist the union, and public sentiment turned against
the miners following the march. In contract negotiations in
February and March 1922, the union requested that wages remain
unchanged, while operators wanted to reduce the scale, citing the
depressed coal market. Northern West Virginia operators, no longer
willing to link their contracts to those for Illinois, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania, requested a separate conference. Frank Keeney, UMWA
District 17 president, met with officials of the Northern West
Virginia Coal Operators Association (NWVCOA) in Baltimore on March
13 but reported that he had no authority to negotiate a separate
contract.58

The 1922 strike began in the Fairmont field with eighty-four
union mines still open. By the end of April, the number of mines
continuing non-union operations decreased to seventy. Mines along
the Morgantown and Wheeling Railroad remained closed while much of
the strike's drama took place just across the state line in the
coke region of Connellsville and Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in late
April and May. Miners at most of the large multi-seam mines on
Scotts Run -- Brady, Cleveland and Morgantown, Connellsville
By-Product, and Gilbert-Davis -- joined the strike. However, the
Bunker and Liberty mines, which mined only the Sewickley seam,
continued operations without union contracts, and Bunker was a
strictly open-shop operation.59

Most of the union mines remained idle during the strike, but in
June, Brady bgan eviction proceedings against striking miners and
resumed operations as an open-shop mine.60 As the strike continued
into the summer, the Chaplin, Sessamine, Randall, Ethel, Shriver,
Oak Hill, Higgins, Cass Hill, Bingamon Valley, and Moser mines
produced non-union coal in an increasingly lucrative market. When
the UMWA announced a meeting at Cleveland in August to settle the
strike, Scotts Run's largest operators broke ranks and attended the
conference. Connellsville By-Product, Cleveland and Morgantown,
Brady, Gilbert-Davis, and Soper-Mitchell petitioned the UMWA to
join the Central Competitive Field. Since these operators were the
only West Virginia mines represented at the conference, this move
caused consternation among the other operators in northern West
Virginia, who attributed it to "influences in Cleveland and
Pittsburgh which are anxious not to have West Virginia mines
enter into too close competition with their extensive holdings in
the present Central Field."61

The strike ended on August 15, and the largest mines resumed
immediately. Within several days, Clinton, Guston Run,
Hickman-Miller, Liberty, and Chaplin went back to work under the
Cleveland Agreement. When the union signatories resumed operations
with day wages unchanged at slightly under seven dollars, they did
so at a competitive disadvantage to the non-union mines toward the
head of the Run, which were no longer bound to the union wage scale
and paid 25 to 35 percent less.62 The strike had driven a wedge
between the mines with out-of-state interests friendly to the union
and the locally controlled non-union mines, exposing a break in the
operators' united front. This diversity of interests would become
even more pronounced as competition for markets increased.

By 1923, the open-shop movement had taken root. I. C. White
noted in August that "[the Scotts Run field] has one distinction
that is unique . . . union and non-union mines have been working
peaceably, almost side by side, since the settlement of the strike
last summer. During the strike a number of non-union mines operated
with but little trouble at a time when at least two thousand union
miners were striking within a distance of less than three
miles."63

Disaster came in 1923 for the coal industry, especially for
mines with union contracts. Non-union coal, notably that from
eastern Kentucky and the smokeless coalfields of West Virginia,
invaded traditional union-mined coal markets with a lower-cost and
often higher-quality product. While Scotts Run coal formerly
competed with the Georges Creek (Maryland), Upper Potomac (West
Virginia), and Somerset (Pennsylvania) fields, it now vied with New
River and Pocahontas smokeless coals. Though prices remained
between $1.15 a ton for fine coal and $2.00 for the larger prepared
sizes, the smokeless coals entered northern markets at even lower
prices.64 The April contract season, when railroads and other large
buyers customarily contracted for fuel, passed without the usual
sales activity. With falling prices, many customers preferred to
buy from the spot market.65

Scotts Run mines shipping railroad fuel received more bad news
in 1923 when the Interstate Commerce Commission ended the practice
of "assigned cars." During times of high demand for coal and car
shortages, the railroads distributed cars to mines on a prorated
basis. However, mines loading railroad fuel typically received a
full car supply. The Pennsylvania and New York Central often gave
Scotts Run mines more cars than they could load, while neighboring
mines shipping commercial coal canceled shifts for lack of cars.
The ICC ordered this discriminatory practice stopped.66

As the Cleveland Agreement approached the end of its term in
early 1924, the operator associations representing union mines
called for a reduction in wages not only to compete with non-union
producers but to remain in business. Shortly before the agreement
expired, both the NWVCOA and the Monongahela Coal Association met
in joint session.67 The operators could not agree on a strategy to
deal with the UMWA's demand to hold the line on wages.
Soper-Mitchell, Gilbert-Davis, Pursglove, and Connellsville
By-Product were willing to negotiate with the union, ut
Brady-Warner and Chaplin were ready to begin open-shop
operations.68 The failure of this conference signaled the effective
end of the Monongahela Coal Association as representing the united
interests of the Scotts Run operators.

The subsequent strike or, as the union termed it, "organizing
campaign," began on April 1 and proved to be the turning point for
labor relations on Scotts Run. Though previous strikes had been
relatively peaceful, the 1924 strike was quite different. Exactly
one month into the strike, Brady-Warner posted notices at its Brady
mine near Lowsville, stating the company would resume operations at
the 1917 wage but not under a UMWA contract. Miners who did not
wish to work under this plan were to vacate their houses.69 This
action triggered a chain of violent confrontations, culminating in
armed clashes at Brady between strikers and mine guards on May 22
and again on June 19. This early strife foreshadowed events on
Scotts Run.70

On May 8, both the Pursglove mines and the Connellsville
By-Product mine resumed operations under the New York Agreement, a
modification of the Jacksonville Agreement between the UMWA and
northern and midwestern operators. It extended the expiring
Cleveland Agreement until April 1927, permitting the Monongahela
operators to lower wage rates incrementally.71 On August 27,
Brady-Warner posted notices at Osage, identical to those at its
Brady mines, for work to resume September 2. When the miners did
not report, Brady-Warner began evicting strikers from their homes.
Chaplin Collieries followed the same course beginning September 11
and reopened with non-union labor in early October.72

Scotts Run presented the confusing spectacle of non-union mines
at work under the 1917 scale, non-union mines being struck for
higher wages, union mines at work under the New York scale, and
union miners picketing non-union mines. Evictions, tent colonies
and barracks, injunctions, shootings, dynamiting, and arrests of
miners and deputies completed the sense of turmoil.73 By late 1924,
continued low prices caused mild panic among the operators, whose
balance sheets showed consistent losses. E. H. Gilbert, president
of Gilbert-Davis, predicted a revision in the union scale at a
gathering of Morgantown businessmen and coal operators.74 In
November, Joseph Pursglove told UMWA president John L. Lewis that
"something must be done [because] all the men who are operating
union coal mines are going bankrupt. . . . All the union operators
are in bad shape financially and it certainly will not be a good
thing for the industry as a whole . . . for these men to go
bankrupt."75

The situation worsened in 1925. The spring contract season
stimulated "infinitesimal" demand, and non-union as well as union
mines worked drastically reduced schedules or closed altogether.76
Van Bittner, the UMWA representative for District 17, again issued
a strike call for April 1, signifying that the previous drive had
failed. Union operations responded by closing down entirely,
claiming that the wage scale prevented them from breaking even.
Gilbert-Davis, Connellsville, Pursglove, and Soper-Mitchell laid
off 2,240 miners.77

After the strike threat passed, Connellsville resumed operations
on a railroad fuel contract. Pursglove also reopened with union
labor by the middle of May. Soper-Mitchell, however, announced in
late April that it would resume operations only under open-shop
conditions and leased its Berry and Jere mines to the Monon Gas
Coal Corporation to avoid abrogating its union contract. Though the
names of its officers changed, control of the mines remained the
same.78

Simultaneously, Gilbert-Davis announced that it was severing
relations with the union and would also continue operations only
under the "American Plan" or with non-union labor. Its officers
were considering leasing operations to a non-union company when, on
April 27, three of their tipples caught fire, starting a brush fire
that threatened the Gilbert-Davis camp of seventy houses. The fires
were put out at 2:30 a.m., after all three tipples and several
houses were destroyed. Gilbert-Davis was only partially insured for
the estimated two hundred thousand dollr loss, and investigators
determined that arson was the cause of the fire. Though the union
denied responsibility, it received the blame in the local press.79
Gilbert-Davis built a new steel tipple, and on July 9, Bittner
announced that the company would resume operations under union
contract. Work started at its No. 1 and 2 mines on July 23.80

The last signatories of the New York Agreement repudiated their
contracts in 1926, as Gilbert-Davis, Connellsville, and Pursglove
shut down April 1, then reopened on a non-union basis. The coal
market partially revived in 1926, owing to shortages caused by
anthracite and British miners' strikes, but the entire field worked
under strictly open-shop conditions after 1927. Wages fell to less
than the 1917 levels for miners as coal prices dropped well below
break-even levels for the operators. Wage reductions achieved by
the elimination of the UMWA from Scotts Run did not provide the
anticipated benefits. Brady-Warner went into receivership in 1927,
and the Liberty mine closed permanently that year.81 The
Talbot-Chambers Coal Company succeeded the Bunker Coal Company in
1925 and operated less than one year before being sold to the
Dragon Coal Company which in turn folded in 1928.82 Then, after
five unrelieved years of depression in the coal industry, the Great
Depression settled over the entire nation.

The coal market during the Depression should have discouraged
new operations on Scotts Run, but new companies obtained leases on
abandoned mines, cleaned them out, and began limited operations.
Desperate, hungry miners, willing to work for any wage, returned to
the mines for one or two days a week. The Jere mine resumed
operations as the Scotts Run Fuel Corporation in 1929, only to
close in 1930, and was reborn in 1932 as the Sunrise Coal Company,
operating until 1936. The Guston Run Mining Company took over
operation of the Gilbert-Davis No. 1 mine in 1931 and produced over
125,000 tons each year until it shut down in 1935. The former
Gilbert-Davis No. 4 operated briefly as the Gilbert Hill Fuel
Company in 1930 and the No. 6 as the Ernest Coal Company from 1925
to 1931.83

While the depressed coal industry devastated the lives of
miners, it also took its toll on the operators. Samuel D. Brady
died in 1931, not long after Brady-Warner went bankrupt amidst a
renewed period of labor strife.84 This unrest was partially
resolved as the previously most militant non-union operators, now
anxious to stabilize their industry, signed a UMWA contract in 1931
with a grateful Van Bittner. One operator who had survived the bad
times with the union remained the lone holdout.85 Connellsville
By-Product president James Paisley, who had broken publicly with
John L. Lewis in 1926, absolutely refused to sign the 1931
contract. Paisley put down focused strikes with tear gas and
machine guns and forced his employees to patronize the company
store.86 On December 1, 1932, he died at the age of fifty-six with
an estate, it was rumored, of $2.5 million in Monongalia County
property holdings alone. However, upon settlement of his affairs,
the entire estate was appraised at sixty-six thousand dollars.87
Stephen Arkwright, Paisley's second-in-command, died on December
25.88 Connellsville By-Product then became Pursglove Gas Coal
Corporation's No. 5 mine, with union labor. The merger, one of the
first large combinations on Scotts Run, came too late to help
stabilize the industry there.

Some companies, however, continued steady production during the
difficult period from 1925 to 1935. Chaplin Collieries, for
example, produced between 165,000 and 289,000 tons annually, with
an average yearly production of 233,727 tons. Pursglove's four
mines also maintained similarly steady production. The most notable
production came from Continentals Brock No. 4 shaft mine. In 1926,
its first full year of production, it raised 542,000 tons of
Sewickley coal while still under development. In 1928, Brock
hoisted 1.03 million tons and in 1930, 1.06 million tons, making it
the largest mine in West Virginia.89

Smaller operations continued into the Depression seemingly
unaffected by economic conditions. The Shriver mine produced 43,000
tons in 1923, its first fll year of operation. By 1926, production
had climbed to 167,000 tons, then dipped below 120,000 tons for
1927 and 1928, climbed back to 162,000 in 1930, and gradually
declined to 80,000 tons in 1936 as the mine worked out. Tiny
Hickman-Miller Coal Company's Baby mine had its best year in 1927;
between 1920 and 1936, its annual production averaged only 16,300
tons.90 Two factors might account for this phenomenon. The
possibility certainly exists that these steady-output producers
held secure contracts during this period, accounting for the
reasonably consistent production from year to year. A more certain
factor was mechanization.

The early days of the Scotts Run field were also the final days
of traditional mining methods. The room and pillar method of
undercutting the coal face by hand, blasting the coal down, loading
it by hand into pit cars, and conveying it to the outside by mules
comprised the operation of the earliest Scotts Run mines.91 As late
as summer 1921, the South Penn Coal Company and almost all
Waynesburg seam mines still used these methods exclusively.92

Mechanizations first wave came in the form of coal-cutting
machines, which functioned like huge electric chainsaws to undercut
the coal seam. These devices were first used in the Fairmont field
in J. N. Camden's Monongah Coal and Coke mines as early as 1890.93
Samuel Brady's Osage mine opened in 1918 with two cutting machines,
and its entire production of 19,701 tons that year was produced
with machine undercutting.94 These devices quickly became
ubiquitous, and no mine that survived the mid-1920s operated
without them. By 1927, Chaplin used seven cutting machines in its
Louise mine and Continental's Brock mine used ten.95 The coal, once
undercut and blasted, was then loaded by hand and hauled to the
tipple. The early Scotts Run mines used mules for this task, but
replaced them with a variety of electrically powered main-haulage
and gathering locomotives. The earlier locomotives received power
through a trolley pole, and by the mid-1920s, some were powered by
storage batteries. Again, the Osage Coal Company was the
technological leader in this area, installing an electric haulage
locomotive in 1918 with the mines opening.96

By the early to mid-1920s, all of the commercial mines had
invested in mechanical cutting and haulage. However, loading coal
for transport to the tipple, the most labor-intensive step in
mining, was also the most resistant to mechanization. Coal-loading
machines first appeared on Scotts Run in 1922, when both Shriver,
then still under development, and Gilbert-Davis bought Joy loading
machines for testing. Though the machines performed well, both
companies abandoned their use within two years, as wage reductions
negated their profitability.97 In 1926, Connellsville By-Product
introduced mechanical loaders and conveyors, and by 1927, Shriver
was again using mechanical loaders. In 1928, Continental purchased
a Jones loader for the Brock mine, then designed and built its own
track-mounted loader. All other companies in the field still relied
on labor-intensive hand loading.98 The chronically poor market
conditions continued to eliminate companies that could not afford
to mechanize. By 1937, only eight mines owned by four companies
remained on Scotts Run, and these companies had completely
mechanized by 1935.99 The introduction of loading machines in coal
mines both increased productivity and decreased the number of men
on the payroll; the miners who remained were paid by the day rather
than by the ton. In Monongalia County, only 2,802 miners worked in
1937, compared to 3,952 in 1923.100 Thus, mechanization added still
more miners to the ranks of the unemployed.

By the early 1930s, the coal industry was no longer the object
of wonder and amazement on Scotts Run. The destitute miners and
their families who inhabited the ramshackle houses captured the
attention of Protestant missionaries and the American Friends
Service Committee in 1931 and the Roosevelt administration after
1933. Relief workers found deplorable living conditions on Scotts
Run, and by the time Eleanor Roosevelt visited the stricken area in
August 1933, it had become a gruesome caricature of the blight
theDepression had spread over the country.101 Stripped of its
industrial glory, Scotts Run became a bleak reminder to the public,
the industry, and New Deal policymakers of the folly of unchecked
development.

Notes

1. Thomas A. Coode and Dennis E. Fabbri, "The New Deal's
Arthurdale Project in West Virginia," West Virginia History
36 (July 1975): 291-92.

2. Over time, Scotts Run came to refer not only to the stream,
but also the valley, the coalfield, and the string of coal
communities that extended from the mouth of the stream to
Cassville.

8. Rogers's five-foot seam is the Sewickley seam, the "third" is
the Redstone seam, and the "highest" is the Waynesburg seam. Howard
N. Eavenson, The First Century and a Quarter of the American
Coal Industry (Pittsburgh: privately published, 1942), 418.

9. William Barton Rogers, "Report of the Progress of the
Geological Survey of the State of Virginia for the Year 1840," in
A Reprint of Annual Reports and Other Papers on the Geology of
the Virginias (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1884),
498.

14. A long ton is equivalent to 2,240 pounds, or 1.12 net tons,
and was the coal industry's standard unit of measurement until the
mid-1920s. Department of Mines Annual Reports give figures
in long tons until 1925. Confusion was compounded by the fact that
most companies paid their miners for long tons produced but
marketed short tons.

17. Records of Incorporation, Book 2, 79 and Grantee Index to
Deeds to Dec. 31, 1935, Book C, 173-80, both in Monongalia County
Courthouse, Morgantown, all county court records cited herein are
at the Monongalia County Courthouse. By 1902, the Cochran family of
Dawson, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, had an illustrious history in
the Connellsville coking coal district. In 1843, James and Sample
Cochran produced coke in the first successful beehive ovens and
sold their product in Cincinnati for seven cents a bushel.
Subsequent coke markets developed much closer to the coking coal
region. The Cochrans later founded the Washington Coal and Coke
Company and a complex of mines, coke works, a company town at Star
Junction, and a service town at Dawson. Sara Cochran,
daughter-in-law of James and an officer of the Cochran Coal and
Coke landholding company, built the imposing Linden Hall manor
during the boom years. It serves today as the United Steel Workers
of America's conference center and retreat. Sarah H.Heald, ed.,
Fayette County, Pennsylvania: An Inventory of Historic
Engineering and Industrial Sites (Washington, DC: HABS/HAER,
Americas Industrial Heritage Project, 1990), 10, 70-74.

18. Workman, "Fairmont Coal Field," 34.

19. Data on individual companies was compiled from a variety of
sources and recorded in a Microsoft Works v.2.00 database in
MacIntosh format. This data was then used to find relationships
among the various companies. Sources include Monongalia County deed
books, grantor and grantee indexes, and records of incorporation,
Keystone Publishing Company coal catalogs, West Virginia Department
of Mines Annual Reports, West Virginia Geological Survey
reports (primarily Monongalia County, 1932), the issue of Black
Diamond noted above, and the Central States Publishing
Company's "Northern West Virginia Coal Field Map" (Columbus, OH,
1923). Hereafter referred to as Scotts Run Database.

20. Black Diamond, 11 August 1923.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.; Department of Mines, Annual Report,
1917, 80.

23. Records of Incorporation, Book 4, 284 (Scott Run), 413
(Berry); Lawall, "Modernization in the Scotts Run District," 17-18.
Lawall notes that many of these early mines were sold for huge
profits before they were fully developed. Both Chaplin and Lee
Shriver sold their early ventures and went on to develop larger
mines.

24. Lawall, "Modernization in the Scotts Run District," 18.

25. Records of Incorporation, Book 4, 287.

26. A drift is a horizontal mine opening which opens directly
into the coal seam, usually on the side of a hill. A slope mine
accesses the coal seam by an incline when the seam is lower than
the access point. A shaft mine also accesses a deep seam, but by a
vertical tunnel or shaft. A drift mine is the simplest and most
cost-effective method of access; slope and shaft mines are more
costly to develop in terms of both time and capital. Records of
Incorporation, Book 4, 314; Department of Mines, Annual Report,
1918, 94; Earl H. Core, The Monongalia Story: A Bicentennial
History, Vol. 4: Industrialization (Parsons: McClain
Printing Co., 1976), 457.

27. Records of Incorporation, Book 4, 372 (Elkins-Stone), 345
(Cleveland and Morgantown), 329 (Chaplin). Joseph Pursglove bought
extensive coal acreage and resold it to his company. He also leased
land to the Elkins-Stone Coal Company. A close relationship existed
between the two companies, as Stephen F. Elkins, president and
superintendent of Elkins-Stone, married Anna Pursglove. The
Elkins-Stone mine became Cleveland and Morgantown's No. 2 mine in
1923. Elkins also had extensive coal interests in the Freeport and
Kittanning seams on the Morgantown and Kingwood Railroad. Deeds,
Book 165, 89, 161 and Book 166, 148.

28. Records of Incorporation, Book 4, 329, 431 and Book 5, 70;
Department of Mines, Annual Report, 1918 and
1920.

29. Scotts Run Database. This relationship becomes apparent when
grouping data by seam and production.

30. Workman, "Fairmont Coal Field," 91.

31. Keystone Consolidated Publishing Company, "Directory of
Mines," The Coal Catalog: Including Directory of Mines
(Pittsburgh: Keystone Consolidated Company, 1920), 874-924,
hereafter referred to as Keystone Catalog. The directory contains
listings for each mine in the state and reports, among other
statistics, its source of power.

35. Black Diamond, 21 January 1922. The "Mine Wars" in
southern West Virginia occurred during this period and considerably
suppressed production in that region.

36. Black Diamond, 11 August 1923.

37. Morgantown Post, 21 December 1921. White had no
traceable direct financial interest in the Scotts Run field.
However, he was socially connected with a number of the operators,
as evidenced by the records of incorporation of the Morgantown
Country Club, which he co-chartered with them.

38. See, for example, Black Diamond, 23 May and 13
June 1925. Gilbert-Davis, Chaplin, and Soper-Mitchell all touted
the advantages of Sewickley coal as locomotive fuel.

39. Black Diamond, 11 August 1923.

40. Chester Zimolzak, "Changing Ownership Patterns in the West
Virginia Coal Industry: Oligopoly and its Geographic Impact," in
West Virginia and Appalachia: Selected Readings, ed. by
Howard Adkins, Steve Ewing, and Chester Zimolzak (Dubuque, IA:
Kendall/Hunt, 1977), 175-76; Department of Mines, Annual Report,
1924, 138 and 1928, 114. In 1924, Monongalia County
produced 3.3 million tons of Sewickley coal and 3.9 million tons of
Pittsburgh coal. Forty-five percent of the countys 7.4 million tons
was Sewickley production. This proportion remained relatively
constant through the 1920s. By 1928, 3.7 million of the 8 million
tons of Monongalia County coal mined, or 46.2 percent, was
Sewickley production.

41. Keystone Catalog, 1930, 818-22. The maritime provinces
received coal from New Brunswick mines and Alberta mines supplied
coal for the western provinces, but consumers in the Great Lakes
regions of Ontario and Quebec found it cheaper to buy American
coal.

43. Keith Dix, What's a Coal Miner to Do?: The Mechanization
of Coal Mining (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1988),
127. This minimized the expense of tipple equipment, an important
consideration for the marginal operator.

44. Richard Mark Simon, "The Development of Underdevelopment:
The Coal Industry and its Effect on the West Virginia Economy,
1880-1930" (Ph. D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1979), 41-42;
"Testimony of John L. Lewis," Conditions in the Coal Fields,
vol. 1, 375.

45. Scotts Run Database.

46. Ibid.; Black Diamond, 11 August 1923,
especially "Location of Mines in the Scotts Run Field."

47. Records of Incorporation, Book 5, 206. The Brock mine was
begun in 1920 by former Governor and Morgantown attorney William E.
Glasscock, who chartered the Glasscock Collieries with a capital
stock of two hundred thousand dollars and began the lengthy process
of developing the only shaft mine on Scotts Run. By late 1923, the
mine was still not operational and was sold to the Continental Coal
Company. See Deeds, Book 192, 213. Within a few years it
became the most productive mine in West Virginia.

48. Black Diamond, 11 August 1923, especially "Location
of Mines in the Scotts Run Field. "

49. By 1924, the UMWA had been extirpated from the Kanawha
coalfield where the union had its only presence in southern West
Virginia. See "Testimony of Van A. Bittner," Conditions
in the Coal Fields, vol. 1, 1058-72, passim.

58. Black Diamond, 8 April 1922. Since 1898, the Central
Competitive Field (CCF) contract, comprised of the union mines in
Illinois, Indiana, and portions of Pennsylvania, had been the
benchmark for negotiations in other fields, which occurred only
after the CCF contracthad been completed. As differences among
fields became more pronounced, outlying union fields became less
willing to let conditions in the CCF dictate the terms of their
contracts.

67. Morgantown Post, 8 March 1924. The Monongahela Coal
Association had been formed as an adjunct of the Northern West
Virginia Coal Operators Association to represent the special
interests of operators whose output was shipped by the Monongahela
Railway. "Testimony of Van A. Bittner," Conditions in the Coal
Fields, vol. 1, 1072.

68. Morgantown Post, 1 April 1924; Black Diamond,
5 April 1924.

69. Morgantown Post, 1 May 1924.

70. Black Diamond, 28 June 1924. See also
"Testimony of Samuel D. Brady," Conditions in the Coal
Fields, vol. 2, 2080-81 and Workman, "Fairmont Coal Field,"
131-33 for a complete account of this first "battle" in the 1924-28
mine war.

71. Morgantown Post, 8 May 1924. This took into account
the freight rate differential between West Virginia mines and those
in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Northern West Virginia Coal Operators
Association, whose mines were served by the B&O, negotiated an
agreement in Baltimore shortly before the end of the contract. The
Monongahela Coal Operators Association, whose output was shipped by
the Monongahela Railway, negotiated an identical contract in New
York on 3 April 1924, only after they closed their mines.
"Testimony of Van A. Bittner," Conditions in the Coal
Fields, vol. 1, 1072, 1096, 1120.